the walls decorated with paper
flowers and garlands; shed a warmer, brighter light on the red faces of
the guests in their best clothes.

At the head of the centre table sat the bride and bridegroom, she in a
white dress trimmed with stripes and bows of coloured ribbon, giving her
the appearance of an iced cake all ready to be cut and served in neat
little pieces to the bridegroom beside her, who wore a suit of white
clothes much too large for him and a white silk tie that rose halfway
up his collar. Grouped about them, with a fine regard for dignity and
precedence, sat their parents and relations; and perched on a stool at
the bride's right hand a little girl in a crumpled muslin dress with a
wreath of forget-me-nots hanging over one ear. Everybody was laughing
and talking, shaking hands, clinking glasses, stamping on the floor--a
stench of beer and perspiration filled the air.

Frau Brechenmacher, following her man down the room after greeting the
bridal party, knew that she was going to enjoy herself. She seemed to
fill out and become rosy and warm as she sniffed that familiar festive
smell. Somebody pulled at her skirt, and, looking down, she saw Frau
Rupp, the butcher's wife, who pulled out an empty chair and begged her
to sit beside her.

"Fritz will get you some beer," she said. "My dear, your skirt is open
at the back. We could not help laughing as you walked up the room with
the white tape of your petticoat showing!"

"But how frightful!" said Frau Brechenmacher, collapsing into her chair
and biting her lip.

"Na, it's over now," said Frau Rupp, stretching her fat hands over the
table and regarding her three mourning rings with intense enjoyment;
"but one must be careful, especially at a wedding."

"And such a wedding as this," cried Frau Ledermann, who sat on the other
side of Frau Brechenmacher. "Fancy Theresa bringing that child with her.
It's her own child, you know, my dear, and it's going to live with them.
That's what I call a sin against the Church for a free-born child to
attend its own mother's wedding."

The three women sat and stared at the bride, who remained very still,
with a little vacant smile on her lips, only her eyes shifting uneasily
from side to side.

"Beer they've given it, too," whispered Frau Rupp, "and white wine and
an ice. It never did have a stomach; she ought to have left it at home."

Frau Brechenmacher turned round and looked towards the bride's mother.
She never took